Large Format Monitors
Large Format Monitors60 inch monitor or larger any one? ThinkingOutLoud.DonaldNoyes.20110919---- On an occasion, after buying my first large screen tv (46"), I was pleased to discover that provisions had been made to allow not only the connection to a Digital Tv Provider, but also HDMI and a Pc Monitor connection. Not having HDMI on my present computer, I connected via a monitor cable my laptop's video out with the Pc Input of the Tv. After playing with the remote for a bit, I finally discovered it's a simple thing to switch from ordinary Tv programming to the Pc by a simple scroll and select. My computer discovered it, connected, discovering it to be 1920 by 1080, and almost instantly displayed what was initially a blank screen. After reconfiguring the laptop, I was able to simply extend the desktop to include the 1920 by 1080 as if it were more screen space for the desktop, which could be positioned as if it were above, below, to the left, or to the right of my laptop screen. I set it to appear to be above it, since I had placed a small table just in front of the tv to hold the laptop. The screen image was very crisp, and I was able to reduce the font size to allow for positioning of several windows in the space.
Since I am often working at my computer while others in the family are viewing tv programs, I chose to make my experimenting with this configuration possibility with a 20 inch flat panel that I had used with a Desktop computer I am no longer using actively. Needless to say, the addition of a larger space - I rotated the monitor, making it portrait in nature as 1280 high by 1080 wide. I have found since, that I have developed a style of working with both the laptop screen which is 15.6 inch in size, and the former desktop monitor, that I used it primarily to navigate, and the second, larger screen as the target of whatever working program environment I was actively using. Sometimes I split the larger screen into 2 areas, each of which about the size of my laptop screen. This effectively gives me 3 monitors.
I expect, if I were to secure a 60 inch Tv, that I could split it into 6 or eight spaces. There are many possible uses which one could put such an arrangement into use as, including multiple webcam displays from security cameras as well as saving one for skype and the communication it allows. Using it a trip simulator with such geo-locale displays as are available from Google, one might simulate a trip as if flying a couple of hundred feet above an interstate highway and looking as one proceeds at the increasing amount of 3d imaging of buildings and land features. I played with this idea, and took a trip down into the Grand Canyon in Arizona. It was great to be able to see it in a way only possible via a helicopter, except at any time you could just stop, hover, turn, move up and down, until you were satisfied and decided to move on. Low cost, and having no environmental impact on the area. I spent a couple of hours there and in other areas and canyons in the vicinity. I discovered also with a shove and mouse click operation, that motion would carry on in the direction I shoved, at the altitude I selected, such that it appeared as if I were flying over the space. On one occasion I found myself tunneling through the space of a mountain until I arrived on its other side at the same altitude as I had entered.
Marvelous, what can be done, if one has imagination and time to do it, with the technologies coming available, new things almost every day.
Since the writing of the above, I secured a 10 foot HDMI cable and connected it to another laptop in the household having a port for it. It was truly PlugAndPlay, the connection was recognized by both the computer and the 46 inch HDTV. The result was amazing. It started up with resolution of 1440 by 900, and I viewed the video listed here, and was impressed with both the video, the site and the technology required to produce it:
Welcome to the 21st Century, Donald. These capabilities have been with us for some time now, and most Wikizens are probably aware of them to some extent or other. My desktop display is a mere 27.5" diagonal (it measures 702 mm by my scale). I choose not to split my viewing area with additional display screens although I have a few at my disposal. With a really large viewing area I instead choose to arrange the windows of my activities such that they are sized and positioned according to their immediate value. The editor is front and center; everything else is around that.
Your work and play habits will change over time to accommodate the availability of whatever technology is at your disposal. Keep fooling around with this stuff and you will discover new and interesting ways of presenting your workspace such that your productivity will go down for a while as you mess with it, but then it will rise as you become accustomed to your new environment. Have at it.
I wrote four paragraphs in response, intending to post them here, I have instead given them meaning in two sentences: 'I am only sharing my new experiences in the hope that they may be useful. I will continue.
In my work as a Controls Engineer, using "old technology", in designing environments which allow the display of the measured characteristics of flow, temperature, level, and pressure, along with annunciators, which when a predetermined value was reached, would announce via a buzzer or sound, that an action would be required, varying from the pressing of an acknowledgement button, all the way to emergency shutdown. Using what I describe as LargeFormatMonitors, the hundreds and thousands of square feet of display space taken by the old technology, could easily be displayed within the sight and reach of a single operator. This could include communication with plant technicians and other operators as well as with any interested party with a phone, computer or pager, any place in the world. The technology of measurement and display of critical parameters is "old", but the method and means of control, measurement, display and communication is 21st century.
Note: I noticed in a recent cablecast that the Virginia Class submarine Texas utilizes video displays which are wired to the appropriate sensors and electronic equipment and are used to navigate, observe and conduct normal and warfighting operations. This replaces the older analog and physical devices (including the formerly retractable periscope, which is now physically external to the pressure hull. -- DonaldNoyes.20110902
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